Prisoner
by EbonyEnigma
Summary: Emperor Hades rules the land. The forces of Pantheon, including Chief Medic Will Solace, fight bravely against him. But when Will is kidnapped by the enemy, will his ornery, annoying, dashingly handsome jail guard have the courage to fight back against the Emperor? AU Solangelo. Includes minor Percabeth & budding Tratie.
1. Prisoner

Dagnabbit! Foiled again! Okay. *takes deep breath* I'm not Rick Riordan either!

"SOLACE!" Percy bellowed, running into the tent with his black hair even more messy than usual. One of his cheeks was bleeding and the left strap of his armor hung crookedly off his shoulder, bronze clasp glinting in the dim light of the army tent. "I need you out on the field right now, Will!"

Will looked up from bandaging Travis Stoll's arm, where a deep slash oozed purple liquid. Katie Gardner hovered nervously over his shoulder, speaking quickly into a walkie-talkie. "No, Miranda, the vine spikes go over the barricade facing OUT!" she muttered, rolling her green eyes and throwing a worried glance toward Travis.

Will finished the bandage, tore it off with his teeth, and stood up. He gestured to Katie and she immediately took his place, gripping Travis's hand tightly in her free one. Will wondered briefly if he should be worried about the fact that she was now yelling something into her walkie-talkie about Venus flytraps and the Ares squad, but quickly decided that, judging from the look Percy was wearing, he had more important things to worry about.

Will blinked the sleepiness out of his bright blue eyes and looked at Percy, who had an expression on his face now that was something of a combination of terror, rage, and loss.

"Aphrodite's adolescent acne," Will cursed, grabbing one of his emergency kits and rushing toward Percy, worn flip-flops nearly tripping him up. Percy grabbed his arm and ran out the door without another word, panting, the desperation with which he clung to Will enough to tell him all he needed to know. "It's Annabeth again, isn't it?" he asked.

Percy just gripped his arm tighter and Will was sprinting now, running with his emergency kit bouncing against his leg. In his peripheral vision, he could see that Percy's deep-green eyes were clouded like the sea in a storm.

They ran past green explosions of Greek fire, past their own forces fighting against black-armored enemy troops. Will heard a yell of pain from the battlefield and he turned, fighting against Percy's grip for a moment to find its source.

Then he saw her, and he saw what was happening.

Annabeth was bent over on the sidelines of the maelstrom of bodies, clutching her thigh in one hand, fending off a dracaena with the other. Piper McLean stood at her back, dark braids flying as she shouted at the monsters and brandished her dagger. She supported Annabeth with one arm, but it was obvious that both girls were flagging, every movement a little more sluggish than the last.

Will and Percy ran towards them, dodging monsters and people in black chain mail. Riptide flew through the air and Will whistled shrilly at monsters that got too close, and they soon reached the place where the two girls were fighting.

Percy and Annabeth exchanged a look, then Percy gave Will a glance and gestured to the girls. The dark-haired boy stepped in front of the group to defend them all, and Will went to work on Annabeth's leg, methodical motions honed to perfection by years of tough, bloody practice.

He had just tied off the last bandage when Percy shouted, "Retreat! We can't hold them!" Will glanced up sharply to see that demigods were fleeing the fields all around them as the monsters advanced. He urged Piper and Annabeth to their feet, and began to follow them, shouting for Percy to catch up. The other boy ran past him, catching up to both exhausted girls and half-carrying them towards the distant fort, where Will could see that Katie's plan had worked. The sharp rows of spiky vines on the outside of the walls would thwart any enemies attempting to scale them. All Will had to do was run fast and he'd be safe.

Unfortunately, the slender, lanky nineteen-year-old and his heavy medical bag weren't exactly fit for physical exertion, and his breath began to come faster.

Then, Will stumbled.

And the medic fell.

He turned onto his back to see a small black-chain-mailed figure leaning down over him. The soldier leaned closer and closer toward him, and Will thought he could make out deep brown eyes behind the armor.

The figure pulled out a long black sword unlike any he had ever seen, and Will pressed his back into the dirt, squeezing his eyes half-shut.

Then the person turned the sword so that the hilt was facing Will.

And raised it up.

Will closed his eyes all the way, and he could not have told when the blackness faded into one even deeper.

Gray, gray, everywhere and not a drop of sun.

That was Will's first impression of the place in which (if he remembered the demigods' plans) he would spend a probably very uncomfortable two months before his side won the western front and regained enough soldiers that they had the means to storm the fort.

He sat up groggily and looked down at the small bed on which he had been lying, then groaned. He was currently situated in a square cell about big enough for him to do the splits across. There was a small toilet in the opposite corner from where he was sitting and one wall was entirely open, latticed with two-inch-thick iron bars.

Will stood up and ran a hand through his shaggy blond hair, then paced the perimeter of his cell, looking for ventilation shafts, loose ceiling tiles, anything that Annabeth had specified in the pamphlets she'd handed out about "How To...Be A Polite and Proper Prisoner of War" (he was now so, so glad that he had been one of the few who'd read them), but the cell was airtight and cement-walled, the nearest ventilation shaft being right in the middle of the ceiling outside his small cubicle.

Will slumped against the wall, pulling his knees up to his chest with a sigh. He wondered how long it would be before he was scratching endless lines into the cool cement, losing count of the days. He imagined his hair growing out, his clothes becoming more ragged, until he went crazy with confinement. He knew that he'd be rescued before that happened, of course, but he always liked to consider the worst possible scenario just in case...

"You're awake...wonderful," said a sarcastic voice. Will jumped upright and glanced around wildly. There was a quiet laugh from outside and a boy stepped into his view.

He was about Will's age, but much shorter, with dark hair and all-black clothes-black aviator's jacket, black jeans, black shoes; but even out of his armor, Will recognized his eyes.

"You're the one who captured me!" Will blurted, running to the bars of his cage. "Listen, there must be some mistake. I'm a medic and there are hundreds of people getting hurt out there _right now,_ so you really should let me go. I'm no use to you."

The boy cocked his head, a half-smile tugging at his mouth. "No use? I think you're selling yourself a little short, _medic_."

Will glared at him. "What do you mean?"

The boy stepped forward to the other side of the bars, hand straying to the black leather scabbard at his belt. "Will Solace," he said languidly, completely at ease. "Chief Medic of the Army of Pantheon. Accomplished sonic whistler. Popular, intelligent, well-liked, easy on the eyes. A truly magnificent squash player."

Will didn't know whether to blush or start yelling.

"And…" the boy continued, pacing back and forth in front of the cell with hands clasped behind his back, "very, very influential to Chief Strategist Chase and Generals Jackson and Grace, who, as we all know, report directly to the chief of all you upstarts, Zeus." The name slid from between his teeth like a small, sibilant snake.

"How could you _possibly_ get all this on me? Only three people even know I play squash!" Will said, exasperated and amused at the same time.

"Make that four," said the boy. "I know things."

"Yeah, well...do you know what the twelve vertebrae in the spine are called?" asked Will, grasping for an advantage.

The boy looked confused. "Who in Hades' name knows that?"

"I do," said Will triumphantly. "They're called the dorsal vertebrae, and-"

"Whatever," the dark-haired boy said, cutting him off. "We've gotten way off track. What I was supposed to tell you is that I'm your jail guard."

"Wait," said Will, confused. "You captured me. Shouldn't you be out on the front?"

The boy huffed. "We ran out of male guards and they don't want women guarding attractive men, and vice versa."

Will nodded, impressed with this logic. He had squeezed in enough science fiction novels in between his study sessions and healing to understand why this was so.

"So," he said. "Who's at the front in your place, then?"

The other boy turned, the half-smile on his face again. "Oh, no, you don't," he said. "You are not getting any information out of me, not with _that_ kind of feeble attempt at manipulation."

Will sighed. It had been worth a try, at least.

There was a sharp sound at the other end of the corridor, and the boy's dark head whipped around. He unsheathed his sword and started to stride away.

"Wait!" called Will. No matter how mysterious and annoying, he wasn't in a hurry to lose his possibly only companion. "I don't even know your name!"

The boy turned to face him, and Will thought he saw something in his brown eyes soften. "Nico," he said quietly. "Nico di Angelo."

There was another clang, nearer this time, and then Nico was gone.

Will settled down against the cool cement wall again, leaning his blond head back against it, and sighed. _Nico di Angelo._

It was going to be a long two months.


	2. Guard

One thing Nico was absolutely sure of: he flat-out _hated_ the newest addition to the jail.

He disliked how Will gave him a sunny smile every time he passed by.

He despised how his heart leaped whenever he talked to the blond boy.

And he absolutely _abhorred_ Will's habits, like the way he paced, blue eyes sad, around his cell, and how he ran his hands through his shaggy blond hair when he was nervous or excited or in between.

Nico turned a corner and walked down yet another gray hallway with black-uniformed guards every ten feet on both sides. He nodded to each as he passed and they nodded back.

Nico turned left, mentally running through the route to the conference room, then took a sharp right and typed in a combination onto a hidden fingerprint-recognition pad in the uniformly gray cement wall.

He was getting tired of this grayness. Would a little bright green or a nice azure have killed Hades when he was decorating? Maybe a nice, subtly patterned wallpaper or some carpeting in a few hallways? And...

Oh no.

Will was starting to get to him. This was very, very bad.

Nico groaned as hidden doors whooshed open in a rush of cool air, blowing back his dark bangs that he had absolutely refused to get cut in a military fashion. Nico didn't care that everyone _else_ had military haircuts. There had to be _some_ advantages to being in his position, right?

Nico shook his hair back into his face and walked into the Restricted Access Area, only for the highest-ranked members of Hades' Guard.

Yes, Will got on Nico's nerves. He got on his nerves big-time. And Nico let him know about it. He let him know about it _big-time._

But that darned kid just kept grinning at him. And making conversation. Hades, could Will talk! On and on about

his friends at home

and his medical kit with all its supplies

and his shirt that said 'MEDIC' on it

and how much he missed being a doctor

and could Nico _please_ give him some antiseptic and an Ace bandage because he was pretty sure that the cut on his arm was infected

or just a Band-Aid would do he supposed did Nico happen to have one anywhere on his person

and of _course_ Nico didn't just have a Band-Aid because who besides Will carries Band-Aids around randomly

and for Hera's sake could Will get a glass of water

And...

No. Nico refused to think about the boy any more. He had an important meeting to attend, and by golly, he was going to get through it without thinking about Will!

Nico nodded his head decisively to himself, then walked forward for an iris scan. The blue light read his eye, blinked once, and then the heavy double doors ahead of him opened, and he stepped into Hades' Official Situation Room.

Nine people sat at a long, ebony-wood table in front of him. Every one of them was at least three decades older than he was. Every one was a highly qualified king or queen or Crown Prince or Princess from some section of Hades' realm. And every one of them was staring at him.

Then the largest chair, a mishmash of cushy red velvet and polished black wood, turned to face him. Its occupant, a tall, thin man with sallow skin and greasy black hair, pursed his lips and steepled his fingers, elbows seemingly making the table groan with their weight.

"Nico." His voice was not warm, nor cold, just _there,_ like tea that has been sitting out too long. Nico remembered Will telling him a story about one time when his tea had gone cold and he had spilled it all over the strategist Annabeth's blueprints... _NO. BAD NICO. NO THINKING ABOUT WILL._

Nico glued a serious expression on his face, prayed it had had had time to dry so it wouldn't slip off, and answered. "Father."

Hades, Emperor of all the land, ruler of Erebus, and arguably the most powerful man in the world, gestured to the empty chair on his right. "Sit."

Nico felt a momentary pang as he always did when interacting with his father. They didn't exactly have the ideal filial relationship. He remembered that Will had said that he and his father Apollo, the archery commander for the Pantheon Army, had once had a game of paint-arrow, and he had accidentally shot Apollo in the eye with the paint...Nico snickered. Then he realized that he was still standing, and that everyone else was still giving him strange looks.

Blushing, Nico took his seat.

And the meeting commenced.

While the whole 'meeting commencing' thing sounded very grand and official, really what happened was everyone yawned and took a drink of water, and then Hades opened his giant-black, of course-six inch binder (50% off with every purchase of thirty dollars or more at Staples, oh boy! Nico bet Will would have loved that deal), and they were off, discussing everything under the sun that was possible to discuss about a Grand and Majestic Empire, which was an _awful lot_ , way more than they should have not been able to delegate, in Nico's opinion.

About half an hour in, King Somnus had begun snoring in his chair, and Queen Hecate was doing card tricks under the table. King Thanatos was lighting matches from a box he'd pulled out of his pocket, then blowing them out as soon as they got close enough to burn his fingers; he and Crown Princess Selene seemed to find this amusing.

Nico was thinking about all the fun Will said that the rebels had at their strategy meetings, and about whether it was really so wrong to want some fun every once in a while. Maybe, he thought, the rebels weren't so bad after all...Whoa. Whoa, whoa, what? Where had that come from?

"Nico!"

He snapped out of his reverie to find his father looking at him.

"Huh?"

"Do you agree with the proposition?"

Nico looked around with a blank look on his face. Joining King Somnus, Queen Hecate, Crown Princess Selene, and King Thanatos in the ranks of distraction were King Daedalus, Queen Nyx, and Crown Prince Morpheus. In fact, the only one who seemed to be paying any attention was King Minos, in front of whom sat dozens of pages of careful notes.

"l...I...Um, yeah. Totally," said Nico, who still had absolutely no idea what they were talking about.

"I told you the boy would contribute nothing," Minos scoffed, continuing to take rapid notes in his bright aquamarine notebook. _Oh, well,_ Nico thought, _at least he brought some color into oh-I'm-Hades-who-hates-color-and-all-things-cheerful-and-interesting's fortress. That's one plus for this guy, at least._

Hades shot him a look of pure darkness which Minos didn't catch because he was too busy adding a ninth footnote onto his page, and gave Nico a glance which said plainly, _I only keep him around to make sure someone with the intelligence of a half-grown otter couldn't decipher our passcodes._

"All right, the motion to exterminate all current captives in three weeks is go," said Nico's father with a tone that could only be described as clinical detachment.

Nico was about to sink back into his daydreams about how great and awesome the rebel side must be to have produced somebody like Will when he realized exactly what it was that Hades had said.

"Hang on! Stop! Hold it!" Nico shouted, jumping up from the table.

Somnus awoke with a start. Hecate dropped her cards, and Thanatos let the flame burn his fingers, then dropped his match with a start and a yelp of pain. Nico dug around in his scabbard and gave Thanatos a Band-Aid (even he had to admit that they were pretty useful to carry around), then looked at Hades in pure shock.

"You're _killing_ all the captives?" he asked in utter disbelief. "Don't you think that's a little, um...extreme? What about, uh, Will Solace?"

Thanatos dropped another match that he was attempting to light on the metal leg of his chair. Nico grabbed the box away from him. "You're sitting at a _wooden table,_ you Zeus-spawn!" he yelled. "That's a fire hazard!"

Hades tilted his head. "Who is this Will Solace?"

Nico froze. "Uh...the medic, remember? The one we were going to hold for ransom? The _very important_ one who's been here for two weeks?" He held his breath.

"He can't be all that important if they haven't even tried to bargain for him yet," said Hades with an airy wave of the hand. "We'll kill him with the rest."

Nico's mouth hung open. "But...you can't just kill them all!"

Hades smirked, thin lips curving up (for perhaps the sixth time in his dreary, gray-and-black existence, Nico thought sourly).

"What can't I do? Kill people I own? That doesn't violate any laws, does it? There are no human rights laws! I _make_ the human rights laws! Therefore, _there are none_. I may do whatever I please. And I please to kill all the prisoners so that there is room for new ones. More important ones, like Captains, Commanders, and Generals. Because soon, I have a feeling that we'll have a lot more, more important, prisoners in here."

Nico tried to protest, but his father cut him off.

"Motion passed," he said, "meeting adjourned, everybody." Hades was, at this moment, perhaps more cheerful than Nico had ever seen him. He was always cheerful when he was killing hundreds of people, Nico thought-that and when he was being fitted for a new pinstripe suit, at any rate.

Except this time, what his father was so happy about was not acceptable.

Because this time, one of those hundreds was Will.

Just curious...did anybody catch the My Little Pony references, by any chance?


	3. Cell

Nico's footsteps echoed on the cement floors as he walked quickly down the hallway. He held a steaming cup of coffee in each hand, and he inhaled the warm, crisp-smelling steam as he turned a gray-walled corner.

Though Nico would never admit it to anyone, he was beginning to really get along with Will. He turned left into Will's cell block-his favorite part of the daily mid-morning sector patrol. Actually, it was his favorite part of any sector patrol. Yup, seeing Will was the best part of his day now. Great. His reputation as a sarcastic outsider was now ruined, and all for a gorgeous blond rebel.

Wait, where had _that_ thought come from?

Nico shook it off as he reached Will's hallway. Wait, what was that sound?

Nico tiptoed up to Will's cell and peeked in. Hang on...was that...

Will's slender, gray-jumpsuited shoulders moved back and forth as he swung a makeshift squash racket into a small silver ball, which bounced against his cement wall before coming back to him.

Then, he tripped, and his ball flew past his racket and out the open cell wall.

Nico ducked back against the wall next to the cell, making sure not to spill the coffee he still held.

"Poseidon's perky porpoises," Will cursed, then pushed back his thick hair, laid the racket on his bed and walked over to his other wall. He managed to fit his blond head and one lanky arm out one square of iron, not noticing Nico through the haze of his intense focus, and stretched toward the silver ball on the floor. As he did, Nico noticed it was made out of...was that tinfoil?

"Wow," said Nico with a wry grin, leaning up against the gray wall. "You really are a _magnificent_ squash player."

Will, whose long fingers had been grazing the ball, jerked up at Nico's words and banged his head hard on a metal bar.

Nico winced, then walked over and picked up Will's squash ball.

Will pulled back through the bars, rubbing his head. "Owww," he whined. "Uh...I don't suppose that you have an ice pack on you anywhere?"

Nico snorted. "Yeah. Just let me put down these cups so I can look in the mini-fridge I keep in my pants pocket."

"Well, there's no need to be like _that._ "

Nico grinned. "I did bring you coffee, though." He handed Will the still-steaming cup along with the now-not-exactly-spherical squash ball.

"You wonderful, wonderful man," said Will with a smile that gave Nico that shiver he completely despised.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. Don't get too excited, it's from the barracks and is mostly composed of year-old grinds and water," he said. "My real question is, how the Hades did you get the racket and the ball?"

Will looked thoughtful. "Well, the racket is made of one of my bed legs," he gestured to the bed which, as Nico now saw, had been deprived of its corner leg and now sat forlornly in the cell like a puppy begging; "and some plastic forks, and the ball is aluminum foil. And duct tape." He grinned. " _Lots_ of duct tape."

"Which you acquired by...?" Nico gave him a questioning look, settling down just outside the cell with his coffee in hand.

"I charmed it out of the girl who replaced you when you were at the meeting yesterday," Will said shamelessly.

Nico threw his hands up in the air, sloshing hot coffee all over the place. "This kind of thing is _exactly_ why we don't have girls guard attractive men!"

"Unauthorized solo games of squash? Yeah, I can see why that would be a priority."

"Pedantic!"

"Pessimistic!"

"Idiot!"

"Nerd!"

"Antisocial!"

"Facetious!"

"Death Boy!"

"Stubborn! Wait, what did you just call me?"

"You think I'm attractive?"

"Ugh! Idiot!"

"Hah! You already used that one, _Death Boy_ ," said Will triumphantly, "Now, do you really think I'm attractive?"

Nico rolled his eyes and took a sip of coffee. It was lukewarm. Fantastic. "Look, I came down here to make a plan and unless we _make one,_ you'll be the death boy in three weeks, so your self-esteem really isn't our biggest problem here!"

Will leaned up against the open-lattice cell wall. "My self-esteem _isn't_ the problem. I just want to know what you think."

Will's closeness was making Nico uncomfortable. He walked to the other side of the hallway.

"Yes," he said, shifting feet and shaking his dark bangs back into his face.

Will spat out his coffee. Nico watched him, amused. "Need a hand?" he asked with the quirk of an eyebrow.

"O-okay," said Will, looking awkward. Then he sprouted a grin. "Now I'm embarrassed," he said teasingly. "You're attractive, too!"

Nico felt like he wanted to sink into the shadows and disappear and jump up and down in glee at the same time.

Both boys looked away in opposite directions.

And then there were footsteps coming down the hall towards them. Light, quick footsteps, with quiet echoes.

Nico ran into the middle of the hallway and started pacing back and forth. Will hid his coffee under his bed and lay down on it, looking up at the ceiling with a bored expression on his face.

A girl about sixteen rounded the corner, one hand on her gold cavalry sword and an apprehensive expression on her small face. When she saw who was standing in the hallway, she relaxed, taking her hand off her scabbard.

"Oh," she breathed. "It's just you, Nico."

"Well, thanks," Nico said.

Hazel Levesque rolled her eyes at him. "That's not what I meant and you know it, Nico di Angelo."

"Hang on," said Will. "You've been holding out on me, Nico! I thought the reason I'd never met any of your other friends was because you didn't have any. Hey, Hazel."

"Hi, Will," said Hazel nonchalantly.

Nico looked back and forth between them, mystified. "First of all, Will, you and I are not friends. We're...I don't even know a word to describe the oddity that is the strangeness that is the abnormality that is our relationship. You are the prisoner. I am the guard who has to listen to you jabber on. That is all."

"Ouch," Hazel whispered with a sympathetic look at the blond boy on the other side of the bars.

"Second, how do you two know each other?"

"Oh, we met yesterday," said Hazel breezily with a toss of her golden-brown curls. "While you were in the meeting. Didn't know you two knew each other, though."

Nico looked at them, then he started to laugh. Hazel and Will glanced at each other, then back at him with identical expressions of mystified concern.

"I bet," Nico said, wiping his eyes, "you wouldn't have conned her into giving you duct tape if you'd known she was my sister."

Will's mouth hung open. "Your - your _sister_? But...you..."

"Stepsister, actually," said Hazel, ruffling Nico's hair. "We have the same father."

Nico glared at her and shook his hair back into his face. Hazel made a face at Will with a look that said, _That's our Nico._

"I see," said Will. "Wow. That's really cool. Was this the sister you were so touchy about, then, Nico?"

Hazel's eyes grew wide and she made frantic gestures to Will to stop talking, but the damage was already done.

Nico looked at Will, dark eyes full of pain. Hazel bit her lip and tried to touch his arm comfortingly, but he shook her off. "He might as well know," Nico said gruffly. He turned to Will. "I had another sister," he said. "She joined a rebel group of snipers called the Hunters of Artemis, who later merged as the long-distance artillery unit into the Army of Pantheon. But before that happened, she went on a small-group reconnaissance mission. Here. She came here, and she faced our army."

Hazel hugged Nico's arm close. Will had his hands over his mouth. He knew what must come next.

"They shot her, Will," Nico said miserably. "They didn't recognize her, and they shot her. Twice. She died in a hallway a hundred yards from here, and nobody even realized until they took her body to our father." He was fighting tears now, dark hair covering his face even farther. Will shook his head sadly, unable to touch him and suspecting Nico wouldn't let him even if he could try.

They stood there in silence for a moment, and then there was an earsplitting shriek, a high-pitched squeal of an alarm.

"That's the intruder alert!" Nico exclaimed, grabbing his sword and wiping his eyes hurriedly. "Rebels got in somehow. Later, Will."

He ran down the corridor, black jacket flapping behind him like dark wings. Hazel gave Will a sad smile, then raced off behind him.

Will sat on his bed, trying to comprehend what he had just heard.

One thing he was sure of: healing Nico's heart might be the biggest project he'd ever take on. And by gosh, he was going to get it right.


	4. Rebels

Will was so bored.

He'd tried playing squash...until his ball had bounced out of the cell. Again.

And Nico hadn't been around to help him, so he didn't have anyone to talk to or help him get the ball back.

And then, he'd tried playing around with the first-aid kit Nico had gotten him, but since he had limited supplies, he hadn't been able to experiment much.

And then, he had paced around the cell sixteen times counterclockwise and sixteen times clockwise.

And then he'd had to lie down and wonder where Nico was because he was dizzy from walking in circles for five straight minutes.

So now, Will was lying on his bed and staring at the painfully blank ceiling, wondering where Nico had been all day. Usually, he came around with coffee early in the morning, which Will only knew because he always woke up at sunrise, and Nico came soon after that. Then, Nico came around again a few hours later with food, medical supplies, or other necessities. Will had been awake for at least six hours now, and no sign of the dark-haired boy had manifested itself.

In fact, Will thought glumly, nothing even remotely interesting had happened since the night before, when six armed guards (including Nico, who had given Will a grimace of shame as he passed by at the forefront of the patrol) had stormed back and forth past his cell, hauling two unconscious rebels with them.

The blond boy peered across the row of jail cells. In the two cell opposite his, on identical hard steel beds, lay a girl and a boy about his age, with rebel bead necklaces still hanging on their necks.

Will rubbed his throat - from which his own necklace had been torn with a frightening ferocity by a faceless, black-armored guard as soon as Nico had reported his state of consciousness on the first day - ruefully, thinking of days in the rebel army.

He momentarily felt a spark of annoyance toward whatever rebels were stealing his dark-eyed guard away from him today.

Then he banged his head hard against the steel headboard of his bed, making a resounding ringing sound and a burst of pain above his temples. Only seventeen days here and he was already going insane.

Will stood up, considered pacing, remembered the high velocity at which the room spun after engaging in that particular activity, reconsidered, and balanced the idea carefully on top of the overflowing trash can of bad ideas that he hadn't had the chance to empty with meditation since his yoga mat was still sitting in the medic's tent on the rebel front. Yep, he was definitely going crazy.

Then, from the other side of the hall, there was a noise. Will hopped up from his bed and ran to the front of the cell, peering between the bars.

In the cell directly across from his, the young woman was stirring. Her dark brown hair was messy from sleep, and she ran a hand through it as she sat up, groaning.

"Sleep well?" Will asked with a wry smile.

She looked up at him and grimaced.

"Hah. Funny," she said dryly, and then began to cough. Will took out one of the bottles of water he always kept under his bed-Nico had given them to him one day when he had been complaining about the dangers of dehydration-and tossed it across the aisle and between the bars of the girl's cell.

He and Nico had been playing catch together through the bars practically since the day he had arrived, and his aim had improved greatly. Plus, Nico was so cute when he concentrated on the game, dark eyes flitting back and forth. It was the only time he really ever looked as young as he was.

The young woman across from him cleared her throat, and Will realized that he had been somewhere else-with some _one_ else.

"Sorry," he said quickly, looking back at her. "What were you saying?"

She laughed. "I was saying thanks for the water. I hadn't drunk or eaten anything but rainwater since Cecil and I washed at that stream...two...three days ago. I'm surprised we're both still alive...Hang on! Cecil! Where is he? Do you know? Where did he go? Is he hurt?" She looked around wildly, hazel eyes wide and frightened like an animal's.

"Whoa!" Will exclaimed, waving his hands. "Whoa, whoa, whoa. Stay calm. Deep breaths. Take a drink of water."

The dark-haired girl looked as though she was about to argue, but for some reason she inexplicably seemed to trust him, so she took a gulp from the bottle, shaking hands slopping water down her front.

Will made a 'calm down' gesture with his hands and she takes a shuddering breath. "Now," he said with his 'Doctor's gonna make it all okay' expression. "What's your name, and who's Cecil? Is he the boy who got captured with you?"

"I'm Lou Ellen," said the girl, unsuccessfully attempting to dry her shirt with her clavicle-length dark hair. "Yeah, Cecil was here with me. We were on a recon mission for the Pantheon, looking for Will Solace, the chief medic, who was captured almost three weeks ago. Cecil...he's my...my best friend." Her voice broke on the last word.

"Uh-huh," said Will, one blond eyebrow raised in disbelief. "Never heard that one before..."

Lou Ellen sighed. "It's complicated."

"It always is."

She looked at him, wiping her eyes. "Do you ever feel like you and somebody else could make something really great together...but you just don't know if they'd ever give you the chance?"

Will sucked in a breath. "I know exactly what you mean," he whispered.

They sat there in silence for a moment, each lost in thought. Will coughed and looked away, anywhere but Lou Ellen, and then he realized something.

"Lou-it's okay if I call you Lou?"

She nodded.

"Cecil wouldn't happen to have brown curly hair, would he?"

"Yes!" she exclaimed. "That's him. Where is he? Is he okay? Do you see him?"

Will sighed in relief. "Yeah," he told her. "He's in the cell right next to yours. I can see him from here. He looks fine, although there is the probability of a minor concussion from the location of that bruise...good thing I'm a doctor, huh?"

Lou Ellen's eyes widened. "Wait, are you Will Solace?"

"The one and only," Will said with a grin.

"Wow," said Lou. Then she started laughing, hazel eyes crinkling as she rocked back and forth on her bed.

When she had laughed so hard she had begun coughing, Lou took a breath and a sip of water. Will watched her, amused. "On second thought," he said dryly, "Perhaps I should check you for a concussion as well."

"The irony!" she panted, wiping her eyes. "We were looking for you and we couldn't find you for the life of us. Then we get captured, and boom! There you are."

Will grinned at her. "Wow, that is ironic."

Then they were both laughing, two people on the floor across a hallway.

 _Yup,_ Will thought to himself as tears of laughter streamed from his blue eyes, _definitely going crazy._


	5. Message

I'm so sorry about how long this has taken me to post. I'm in the home stretch of first trimester at school and the homework is absurd. Also, I'm in the middle of writing my own musical (which is unbelievably fun, but very time-consuming), and that's taking a ton of my free time. Again, I apologize. A cyberhug and cyber smile to all of you, and I hope you have all had/will have a lovely day!

It had been three days. Three gods-forsaken days. Three days.

Two plus one days. Seventy-two hours. Four thousand, three hundred and twenty minutes. Two hundred fifty-nine thousand, two hundred dragging, slow, interminable seconds since Will had last seen Nico.

He was considering which prison jumpsuit to die in - which wasn't much fun, considering his options of gray, gray, and gray had even less variation than Mary's wardrobe choices in her closet at Mistlethwaite Manor - when he heard the familiar clicking of combat boots on concrete and his blond head snapped up from its resting place on the gray wall.

Coming around the corner was possibly the most amazing sight Will had ever glimpsed.

Nico's usually apathetic expression broke into a shy grin as he caught a look at Will's beaming countenance.

"I take it," Nico said as he looked down at his feet, "that you're almost half as glad to see me as I am to see you."

Will's stomach swooped, and he smiled a little brighter. "Maybe a third," he said with a glance to let the other boy know he was joking.

Nico laughed, the sound clear and pure and nearly unnatural in the usual grim silence of the cells. Both young men glanced down at their feet, smiling quietly as each enjoyed the moment.

Their comfortable silence was cut short by a tactful cough from across the hallway and both of them turned to look at the teenage girl quirking an eyebrow at them from her cell.

"I hate to break up this moment of squeal-inducing cuteness, but I don't believe we've met since you dragged me half-unconscious down a hallway," Lou Ellen said with a grin.

Next to her, Cecil was being quiet. That was probably a bad sign, but Will was too elated at seeing Nico that he didn't really care.

Nico stepped away from Will, a blush tinging his too-pale cheeks. "Uh, well, I'm Nico," he said, stepping across the aisle to shake her hand through the bars.

"Oh, _that_ I know. Will doesn't shut up about you. Like, ever."

Will glared. Lou Ellen smiled smugly. Nico looked back and forth between them as though they were a difficult mathematics problem he couldn't quite solve.

"Anyway," said the dark-haired boy rather awkwardly, "there's actually a reason I came today."

"Not just to see me?" asked Will, blue eyes seemingly sorrowful.

"Well. That was a motive, just not the main one. It was about thirty-seven percent of my motivation."

"I'm flattered," Will said, rolling his eyes.

"You should be. Anyway, if you actually let me _talk_ for a second, you'd see what the other sixty-three percent of it was."

"Okay, fine. What is it?"

Nico sighed as if to say, _finally._ He opened his uniformly black satchel and pulled out a small, uniformly black device.

"What's that?" Will and Lou asked in unison. Nico pressed a button on the device and it sprayed mist into the air. The mist shimmered for a moment, then solidified into a solid image. Will craned his neck, but couldn't quite make out the picture.

"This," Nico said with a wry grin, "is a Instant Reception Imaging and Sound Sensor, better known as an IRISS Messager. It will allow you to observe and communicate with any person in the world-or any organization."

"You mean..." Will was struck by awe. "We can use this to communicate with Pantheon?"

Nico nodded.

"Nico, you're amazing!" Will cried, grabbing the other boy's hand through the bars of his cell. Nico's fingers knitted with his almost instinctively, and both young men looked down.

"Anyway," Nico said again, still not letting go of Will's hand, "I want to give it to you. Use it tonight, when nobody's looking. Call the Pantheon. Tell them that the execution is on March 13th at 0900 hours, and tell them that you have people on the inside. Ask if they have a plan."

Will nodded.

There was a clatter down at the other end of the hall, and Nico's head whipped around. Will had a sudden sense of déjà vu, remembering the first day they had met, when Nico had had to do exactly the same thing.

The dark-eyed boy gave Will an apologetic glance and pushed the IRISS Messager under the bars into his cell. "I have to go." He pulled his hand out of Will's grasp and ran off, unsheathing his long, uniformly black sword. Will craned his neck out of his cell at an awkward angle to keep Nico in sight until he turned a corner at the end of the hallway and disappeared.

Will looked down at his right hand, still seemingly feeling the coolness of Nico's. He held it to his chest and spun around once before collapsing onto his bed.

He heard two identical snickers from across the hall.

"Oh, shut up."

It was late. How late, Will didn't know. Currently, his perception of time was based on the heaviness in his eyelids and the soft, regular breathing issuing from the opposite side of the corridor. Lou and Cecil, it turned out, were terrible at staying awake, even for something this exciting.

Will stuck his head out of his cell and glanced about, his blond mop of hair the only spot of brightness in the dark passage. When he was satisfied that there was no one else around, he withdrew his head-carefully; he still hadn't forgotten about the last time he had hit his head on the bars-and walked to his bed. Reaching under it carefully, Will withdrew the small black IRISS Messager and turned it on.

There was a sudden bright flash of light that nearly blinded him, and a soft-was that a dial tone?-that made Will hiss quietly and glance about again like someone stealing brownies from the refrigerator.

Reassuring himself that it was late and nobody else was awake, Will felt about on the side of the device and pressed the button he'd seen Nico push.

The mist sprayed out again, and the light dimmed a little, but stayed bright enough that Will could see the shimmer of...a rainbow?

What to do now? The device was hissing quietly, almost as though waiting for instruction, but was Will really supposed to _talk_ to it?

Feeling unimaginably silly, he whispered to the faint light in his hand. "Um...could I see Annabeth Chase...please?"

The whirring's volume increased, and there was a small pinging sound, before the rippling colors solidified into an image: creased brown fabric flapping gently in the breeze. Will recognized it as a rebel tent.

There was movement at the bottom of the small picture, and Will squinted to catch a glimpse of a messy blond ponytail. "Annabeth!" he hissed. "Annabeth Chase! Wake up _right now!"_

The ponytail twitched, shook, and then Annabeth's face came into focus, gray eyes blinking rapidly. "Wha-Who- _Will_?" she gasped, rubbing her eyes hurriedly. "But-how-you-"

Will sighed. "Since your vocabulary seems to be currently stuck in monosyllabic, I think it'll be a lot quicker if I explain. I'm using a device called an IRISS Messager to contact you from the prison, but I don't know how long the connection will last, so we've got to do this quickly-"

"What's going on?" came a new voice, and Percy's face settled into focus next to Annabeth's, his black hair tousled from sleep.

"Percy, shut up!" said Annabeth and Will in unison.

"Anyway, they're planning to kill off every prisoner in this complex, including me and Lou Ellen and Cecil-" Will pointed the Messager across the hall, where two sleeping forms were barely visible- "on March 13th. At nine o'clock in the morning, according to Nico."

"Who's Nico?" Annabeth asked, arching one blond eyebrow.

"He's a guard. He's been helping me out," said Will shortly.

Annabeth gave him a keen look that said _I don't believe you for a second, Mister._ Will sent her a glare. _Not in front of Percy._

Annabeth sighed, defeated, but her eyes told him that he and she would be having a supremely enjoyable discussion of this later. Whee.

Percy - to whom the past thirty seconds had been a whole lot of the two blondes giving each other increasingly meaningful looks that he hadn't the faintest chance of understanding - cleared his throat. "So, what do you need, doc?"

"I wanted to give you that info. I also wanted to ask if you had a plan to get all of us out, 'cause I would be highly appreciative if I were still, you know, alive, in four weeks."

Annabeth gave him an irritated look. "Of _course_ we're getting you out. The question is how...Percy, pass me strategy backup file E-17, please?"

"Huh?"

"Oh, honestly…" Annabeth reached across him and grabbed a bright blue file. She opened it and began to rifle through. "Yes, yes, this...should...work." She snapped the file closed with a happy sigh.

"Definitely. Now, Will, there is absolutely nothing you need to worry about. This plan should be carried out the morning of your planned execution, so I need you to try to spread the word any way you can. And I think I know a way to get in touch with Lord Hades' son, who recently contacted us looking to be an ally. Ordinarily, I'd be hesitant to trust him, but this is an exceptional circumstance…"

"Okay," said Will. "Spread the word. That I can do."

"Oh, and Will-" the picture was flickering now, Annabeth's voice shorting out into staticky pauses. "We-all-iss-ou!"

"What?" Will whispered as loudly as he dared, but the image had disappeared entirely now, and the only sound was his own quick breathing.

He'd said all he had needed to, so he put the Messager under his bed-next to the growing pile of things he didn't want anyone else to see-and climbed onto the lumpy mattress. The sooner he could fall asleep, the sooner the next day would come. _And the sooner I'll see Nico again,_ he added silently to himself.

Then Will groaned. He was beginning to have a serious problem.


	6. Countdown

I'm so sorry. So, so sorry. Really, no excuses. No family members passed on. No nuclear apocalypse. I was not a POW. 

I own not only no excuses, but also none of this content. Really, I have nothing. I'm Whitney, gods rest her soul. 

Enjoy?

"So, last night felt really long, huh?" said Nico.

"Yeah," said Will, splayed out on the floor with his lanky arms and legs starfished and almost touching the corners of his tiny cell. "It felt like it was about five months long."

Nico slid down the bars and sat on the floor. He looked over his shoulder at Will. Will didn't see him smile.

"I brought you coffee," he said, putting the cup carefully inside the cell.

"Mmph."

"That wasn't very enthusiastic, Sunshine."

"Give me a break. I'm conserving my energy for my grand escape. I've been planning a squash-themed uniform and I need you to smuggle me in some tassels."

Nico smiled a little. Just a little bit.

"When did they say they were coming, exactly?" he pressed.

"Day after tomorrow. The morning of..." said Will. "Of my, um…"

"Right."

Will sighed and reeled in his limbs to sit against the bars where he could see Nico's face. He tipped back his blond head and it rang out a dull sound.

Nico reached a pale, slender hand through the bars and put a finger under Will's chin.

Will turned his face toward him.

"Will," Nico said very seriously. "Will, listen to me."

"I'm listening. Are you going to sing to me? Cause that would be really fun. I like music. Hey, can you get me a ukulele? I bet it wouldn't be too much trouble, you could just-"

"Will."

Will stopped, because Nico's voice was gentler than he had ever heard it.

"Yeah?" he said, and his shoulders dropped a little.

"Will, you are not going to die."

"Yeah, I know. They're coming to save me and everything's going to go according to plan-"

"No, I mean...Will. I know you're worried about if the plan's going to work. I know you're worried about saving everybody, because you're crazy and you go out of your mind when people aren't safe. But it's going to be okay."

"I'm just-I'm so confused, Nico."

"Will, you're gonna be fine."

Will groaned. "But how do you know? There are so many things that could go wrong, and so many people we have to save-"

"No, Will. There aren't. There's just you. You're the only one who matters-"

"That's not true! The rest of them matter just as much. All of our lives are important!"

"Will! Can't you understand?" Nico raked a hand through his hair. "No one else matters to me! Just you!"

"But you're wrong! They should all matter to you! They matter, Nico, just as much as I do!"

"Will, you're not hearing me." Nico's dark eyes were pained. "No one else matters to me."

"And I'm trying to tell you I care about all of them, Nico! They all deserve to live. Not just me." Will stood up. "I...think you should go."

"What? Will. You don't mean that."

"Yes. I do."

Nico stood too. He looked up at Will through the bars. Then he turned and walked away down the hallway, boots clicking on the floor.

"And Nico?"

He turned. There was something like hope in his eyes.

Will swallowed. "Don't bother about the tassels."

Nico stared at him for a second. Then he turned again and kept going.

After he'd turned the corner, Will collapsed on his bed and let out a sob.

Cecil said, "Ouch."

Lou Ellen shushed him.

"Will? Do you want to talk?"

"No," he said, feeling very small in his gray jumpsuit. "Lou Ellen?"

"Yeah?"

"We're not going to die, right?"

"Yeah."

"We're not going to die. None of us."

"Yeah."

"Okay."

"Go to sleep, Will," she said gently.

"Okay."


End file.
